Joel Minsky, manager of Los Blancos, believes that the decision to make his team play on Purim was unfair.

The Division Four promotion hopefuls claim to have issued a request to have the weekend off six weeks ago as they had 10 players unavailable. But they were given a match against North West Neasden C - and they lost 5-0.

Minsky said: "This game should never have taken place, it's as simple as that. It's not me throwing my toys out of the pram because we lost, it was a view shared by an ex-head of Maccabi UK, one of the MSFL secretaries and the referee, who went as far as calling it "disgraceful" that we were forced to play.

"We had 20 players missing this week, only two regular starters were available and pretty much everyone was forced to play out of position. We were completely powerless to do anything about it.

"Forcing a religious team, or any team for that matter, to play on a day like Purim is really inconsiderate. Neasden definitely deserved the victory today, but it ultimately comes as no surprise."

Officials from the league say that a formal request not to play on Purim did not arrive, just an informal enquiry. League chairman David Wolff said: "Purim is not a yom tov and is not included in the festivals we take off. But now that this has happened I think we'll need to look at it again."

Neasden player-manager Louis Taylor said: "We were aware that Blancos were missing players but as the cliché goes, you can only beat what's put in front of you and that's what we did."